The Polonaise in Frédéric Chopin’s Works. Andante spianato and the Grande Polonaise Brillante Op.22

"The present study is focused on the musical genre of the polonaise and its particularities in Chopin’s creation, with precise reference to Andante Spianato and The Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22. Chopin’s substantial contribution to the genre consists of the transformation of a gallant dance of conventional harmony into a veritable heroic chant of prodigious harmonies. Due to a proficient transformation of a folk motif, Chopin is able to introduce folklore in his major works, according to the larger trend of national awareness that required the artists’ return to the folklore sources of inspiration that were able to express the national yearning for freedom. Far from the solemnity of the courteous dance, these pieces become programmatic musical poems, sprung from the most noble of emotions, the love for one’s country. The nostalgic chromatics, diffused throughout Chopin’s entire creation, is augmented by the call for resistance in front of the historical events (Poland’s loss of political independence). The polonaises Chopin composed at maturity had a new form, transforming into veritable epic poems which depicted images of Poland’s heroic past as visions impregnated by lyric pathos and pain for the country’s troubled history. Although their common feature is the epic and grandiose tone, Chopin’s polonaises are extremely varied and versatile, characterized by grandeur and dramatism. The work proposed for analysis – Andante spianato in G Flat – is based on the principles of stanzas and variation and has the structure of two stanzas of A B type, followed by a Coda. Chopin added the coda as an introduction (only around 1843-1835, in Paris) to The Grande Polonaise Brillante, Op. 22 (composed in 1831). Although intensely contrasting, the two parts seem to be connected exactly by this difference. This is the process that describes the genesis of The Grande Polonaise Brillante prédécès d'un Andante Spianato Op 22. Keywords: polonaise, folklore, ornamentation, chromaticism, variation, rubato. "

An Ambassador at the Frontier: The Translator’s Role in the Transfer of Niche Art on the Example of the Song „Lobotomy” by The Tiger Lillies

The article discusses the translator’s role as an „ambassador” participating in the process of transferring a niche musical genre from Anglophone to Polish culture on the example of two translations of the song „Lobotomy” by The Tiger Lillies: one by Roman Kołakowski, performed by the group Kagyuma, and the other by Paweł Szarek, performed by Katarzyna Chlebny in the show Macabra Dolorosa, directed by the translator. The Tiger Lillies are a band operating in a peripheral musical genre referred to as ‘punk cabaret’, the features of which are briefl y presented. The analysis of the translations highlights the consequences of a different approach to the source material on the translators’ part and the impact that their choices have on the potential differences in perceiving the song by Polish recipients. The analysis takes into account the intersemiotic elements of music and performance. In the case of a peripheral genre translation decisions are of particular importance for the fi nal form of its transfer to the target culture.

Freedom Girls

Freedom Girls: Voicing Femininity in 1960s British Pop shows how the vocal performances of girl singers in 1960s Britain defined—and sometimes defied—ideas about what it meant to be a young woman in the 1960s British pop music scene. The singing and expressive voices of Sandie Shaw, Cilla Black, Millie Small, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Marianne Faithfull, and P. P. Arnold reveal how vocal sound shapes access to social mobility and, consequently, access to power and musical authority. The book examines how Sandie Shaw and Cilla Black’s ordinary girl personas were tied to whiteness, and in Black’s case to her Liverpool origins. It shows how Dusty Springfield and Jamaican singer Millie Small engaged with the transatlantic sounds of soul and ska, respectively, transforming ideas about musical genre, race, and gender. It reveals how attitudes about sexuality and youth in rock culture shaped the vocal performances of Lulu and Marianne Faithfull, and how P. P. Arnold has re-narrated rock history to center Black women’s vocality. Freedom Girls draws on a broad array of archival sources, including music magazines, fashion and entertainment magazines produced for young women, biographies and interviews, audience research reports, and others to inform analysis of musical recordings (including such songs as “As Tears Go By,” “Son of a Preacher Man,” and others) and performances on television programs such as Ready Steady Go!, Shindig, and other 1960s music shows. These performances reveal the historical and contemporary connections between voice, social mobility, and musical authority and demonstrate how singers used voice to navigate the boundaries of race, class, and gender.

Ceremonial song in eighteenth-century Dublin

The tradition of composing welcome, birthday, and New Year’s Day odes for the monarch in London is one that dates to as early as 1617. It was not until almost a century later that an equivalent tradition in Dublin is evident. The Dublin ode tradition has often been viewed as an imitation of that established at the London court, and, while it doubtless took the London odes as its model initially, its poets and composers developed a series of works that stand apart as unique in their rationale, style, and even musical genre. This chapter shall demonstrate that the Dublin works were distinctive in their political and social intent and function, their poetry housing the intentions of a loyal polity on the margins of the empire that had a unique and complex identity and relationship with Britain. It will discuss the music and word-setting of the works composed by Masters of the State Music Johann Sigismund Cousser and Matthew Dubourg, showing that this ceremonial music for Dublin constitutes a body of works invaluable to our understanding of the cultural and political climate in the city in the eighteenth century.

And Then a Violin Began To Play

This chapter looks at Welsh composer Ivor Novello, whose seven Big Sing musicals, from 1935 to 1949, present an imposing body of work. His seven operettas are Glamorous Night (1935), Careless Rapture (1936), Crest Of the Wave (1937), The Dancing Years (1939), Arc De Triomphe (1943), Perchance To Dream (1945), and King's Rhapsody (1949). They could be described as both terrible and wonderful, vexed by boisterous storytelling yet protected by Novello's extraordinary gifts in melody and harmony. Glamorous Night initiated the rise of the type of musical genre by which Novello is known today. He wrote the scripts, composed the songs (mostly to Christopher Hassall's lyrics), played the leads, and generally supervised the entire production without actually directing. Yet Novello himself, though he played heroes in six of these titles, did not generally sing.

Rethinking singing on screen: the case for contemporary American ‘screensong’ across the film musical, music television and the music video

The last 20 years have seen extensive scholarship on changing audiovisual aesthetics and the blurring boundaries between all screen media. This article draws on this scholarship and engages with critical debates around the musical genre to examine contemporary song-based screen media. While song and singing have a long history across film, television and video, the digital convergence era has engendered new types of song performance and song-based screen formats. To understand the complex connections and exchanges between different forms of singing on screen, this article develops a new evaluative and conceptual framework. I propose the term screensong to refer to audiovisual representations of singing performance across screen-based media. This article understands screensong as both a broad category of song-based screen texts, genres and formats and as a particular type of song-driven, highly commodified, audiovisual and narrative unit – the screensong – prevalent in contemporary American popular screen media.

CROSS-CULTURAL STORYTELLING APPROACHES IN TIKTOK'S MUSIC CHALLENGES

TikTok has created new strategies that has impacted the music industry through visual effects, stickers, filters, augmented reality, split screens, and transitions in videos no longer than 60 seconds. TikTok posts presents a mode of interdependence where users demonstrate the cultural value of music through challenge and audio memes. This study focuses on a popular social trend on TikTok known as ‘music challenges’. We focused on the significance and cultural meaning of music challenge memes through five key elements – image, audio, text, story, culture – to understand what comprises a ‘challenge’ on TikTok, how storytelling constitutes music challenges, and what cross-cultural in-group affiliations are identified in this trend. For this purpose, we developed a ‘TikTok music storytelling codebook’ informed by grounded theory, and selected 150 music challenge meme posts via manual scraping the ‘#MusicChallenge’ hashtag on TikTok 1–3 April 2021. Through a pilot analysis, we identified new modes of storytelling through audio memes related to nostalgia, fandom and humour. Beyond “put a finger down” challenges and “I know the song/I don’t know the song” lists, we found a broader significance in telling stories grounded across cultures: sharing a childhood memory, relating to a lifestyle type, and fanning after a musical genre. We noted a musical-peer group belonging trend that brings out a mixture of urban tribes and experiences via creative song-mixing that lasts seconds. To sum up, we understand that TikTok music challenges emerge as a vehicle for interdependent groups to showcase their in-group identities through playful audio-visual creations.

Finding a Home in House

Discussed most often as a musical genre and queer familial structure, house has long been a home for Blackness—and for femininity. This chapter theorizes a notion of Black queer femmeness along the sounds, affects, and vibrations of house. Through charting the use of Black female vocals across the genre’s origins in the early 1980s, dance pop in the early 1990s, and the mid-2010s’ house resurgence in both the mainstream and indie spheres, this chapter explores how house simultaneously amplifies the femininity of Black female house vocalists and detaches femininity from gendered bodies altogether. In the process, it posits that house works as an affective, or felt, political and cultural configuration, one that opens up the space for new relationalities within and between Black, queer, and/or femme communities. By charting how musical artists continue to return to house’s aesthetics and affective power, this chapter invites readers to listen and feel with the recent past(s) of house music for guidance and inspiration on navigating structural oppressions that continue to reverberate across time: governmental neglect of the life chances of Black and Brown people, police violence against Black and Brown people, and the looming presence of anti-Black racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia. Through such an engagement with the recent past, house accentuates the ongoing resonances between the 1980s and today.

The origin of samba in Brazil

It was in the Vargas Era that samba changed from a musical genre pursued to one of the most popular musical styles in our country. The popularization of samba in the cultural scene in Rio de Janeiro made the genre gain space in the Brazilian music industry. Thus, samba gained space and publicity on the radio.